The Nyazian Prophesy
by Magnus Parvus
Summary: Follow-up to Return to Pylea.  Huge Events; Deaths of Major Characters; Improbable things you've always wanted to see happen and it fits perfectly back into regular continuity.


The Nyazian Prophesy

You don't have to read the story 'Return to Pylea' to read this story, its sequel. They are both standalone stories that can be read independent of each other.

Previously: George the telepathic fish has helped Illyria resurrect Fred, as it were, by creating a separate intellect or consciousness for Fred to live in inside Illyria's head, a fact that they have kept secret from Angel, until they can truly resurrect Fred by re-establishing her soul.

Fred's Cave…

A ghostly form of Fred stood alongside Illyria in her Pylean cave; George the telepathic fish swam beside them.

Illyria held a large jeweled amulet in her hand. "I have the soul amulet that held Spike's essence, and I have the crystal from my sarcophagus. All that remains is that you channel the energy we've harvested from the ore into these."

"Do you think we have enough?" The ghostly Fred asked.

"I do not know if I would be able to contain any more energy than this, and even this amount will have to be expended quickly or it will cause me to overload and explode."

"We can begin." Illyria nodded in affirmation.

A teenaged demon who bore a slight resemblance to Lorne bowed. "Yes my queen."

The young demon flipped a switch. A large burst of swirling light emanated from a contraption set in the centre of the cave and then seemed to be sucked in by Illyria.

Suddenly their environment changed completely. Fred and Illyria paddled a canoe down a swirling river that seemed to be made of milk.

Above them the sky was a vast expanse of blue that seemed to curl right to the river's edge.

"Whoa? Where are we?" Fred looked around in bewilderment.

"We are in the cave." Illyria said stoically.

"This doesn't look like the cave."

"It is not through space but through time that we travel."

Illyria motioned to the surroundings. "This is merely a perception; the true nature of the time stream is inaccessible to finite life forms."

Illyria sank her paddle into the water. "We will go back to the instant of my birth when your soul was burned as fuel for my resurrection."

"I will be able to channel the energies stored within me to substitute for the energy released by your soul and then capture your untarnished soul within the amulet."

"And then we go back to the cave?" Fred asked.

Illyria nodded. "From there we should be able to channel enough energy into the amulet to give you corporeal form."

"The same way I was going to make Spike corporeal."

Illyria lifted her paddle out of the milky water. "Wait I sense something…"

She turned and pointed. "There…"

They looked over to see a coffin drift by them. Inside was a thin brown haired girl, her arms draped across her chest as if she were dead.

Illyria motioned to it. "That is you, that is your soul."

"This makes no sense, why would it be here?"

"It does not matter, quickly paddle or it will drift too far away."

The pair of them quickened the pace of their paddling.

Fred grasped for the coffin as the came along side it. "I got it."

"Whoa." Fred yelled. "Or maybe it's got me; I can't hold it."

"Do not let it go." Illyria warned.

"I won't. Whoa." Fred was pulled out of the canoe.

She griped the side of the coffin as it floated away.

Illyria yelled. "You're heading into that eddy channel. They are recurrent gaps, irregular divergences in space-time. I will attempt to reach you."

Illyria paddled furiously, following Fred down the narrow stream that diverted from the river.

"Looks like you made it." Fred called out still hanging onto the side of the coffin. "We're gonna wash up on shore. Although in this place I'm unsure of what on shore even is."

Illyria looked on as Fred seemed to disappear as she reached the shoreline.

Nighttime…

"There's got to be somebody…" Angel sniffed the air.

All the buildings around had been leveled. Los Angeles had become a city of rubble; a city that had been leveled by war. Fires burned in the distance.

Lilah shook her head. "Honey, we cleaned this section of the city out ages ago, there's not likely to be many stragglers left."

"But there's got to be. I need more…" Angel darted about sniffing at the air furiously.

"Can't I take it from you?" Angel approach Lilah. "It's always so much better from you."

"You can't bleed a stone." Lilah sighed.

"Cold bitch." Hamilton sneered at her.

"Let's just go back home and go to bed huh?" Lilah put her arm in Angel's and laid her head on his shoulder. "We'll find some more tomorrow…"

"But you don't understand, I need it now." He grabbed Lilah and shook her angrily.

"So do as you're bid woman." He slapped her across the face.

He reached out to grab her by force when he reeled back in pain. "Oh no, not now…"

He clutched his head as if in agony, and then looked down at the figure of Lilah whom he had hit to the ground.

With concern Angel rushed over to Lilah. "Mother, are you ok? What happened? Did I?"

"It's ok son; let's go back home, ok?"

"Oh mother I can't, it hurts, I can't, oh mother, please I want you…" Angel curled his face into Lilah's neck and groped her.

Hamilton glanced back at them. "I guess I'd better leave you two alone."

Angel climbed on top of Lilah and began to kiss and fondle her.

Illyria looked on at the scene before her; Lilah stared ahead vacantly as Angel grappled on top of her. Then Lilah seemed to turn and look right at Illyria.

A wistful smile came over Lilah's face as Angel bit into her neck. "Then again maybe you don't want to go home. Not if you can find a straggler or two."

She pushed Angel off of her and reached into her pocket.

Angel flared his teeth at her in anger, but his features softened when Lilah handed a pouch to Angel.

Angel climbed off of Lilah his face distorted by his vampire features, and looked down at the pouch. "Most generous of you my dear, although I doubt Hamilton will be too pleased."

Angel turned and rushed off into the night.

Hamilton turned the corner and looked on at Lilah dusting herself off. "Finished so soon? Although I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. At least now it won't be too much trouble to get him home."

"He's not coming home; he's got the pouch again."

"Oh god, not again." Hamilton winced. "How many are in it?"

"Seven."

"Do you know how long it's going to take me to track him down?" Hamilton bristled. "I told you to only bring the one. The final moments of the biggest game in history; and our star player decides to bench himself repeatedly."

He looked toward her sternly. "This can't go on."

"I know." Lilah nodded.

"Well since this was all your idea you'd better hope that's he's able to finish the game because the senior partners will have no trouble in assessing blame if we lose. They give new meaning to the term 'firing the coach'."

"It doesn't matter now, we're so far ahead on points they'll never recover. This game is a lock." Lilah glared angrily at Hamilton. "Now just go get him and bring him back."

Lilah readjusted her crumpled outfit re-buttoning her blouse and putting a cloth over the bite marks on her neck. She walked directly to where Illyria was crouched.

Lilah smiled. "It is you! You're that alternate universe Fred."

"You know this?" Illyria looked up at her in confusion.

Lilah turned her. "Yes, it was you that night, the night it all began. In answer to what you said before, yes take me with you to see Wesley, I want to be rescued."

Illyria looked to her in puzzlement. "I know you. You are Lilah Morgan; Wesley chopped your head off because he loved you."

"Uh, I did say rescue right? You didn't mention anything about head chopping before."

A Dark Room…

Fred wandered in a haze; she felt her face changing and fangs sprouting from her jaw. She awoke suddenly.

Fred stared out of the small room she had been stuffed in. Her arms were bound in a strait jacket and she was chained by the neck to the wall.

"Hello?" She called out. "Anybody?"

A light came on in the room and she could see a door opening. A rugged handsome, yet unshaven and somewhat dishevelled figure stepped through into the small room.

"Wesley!" Fred shouted enthusiastically. "You're alive. Oh god you're alive.

Wesley smirked cynically. "Oh yes veins are still pumping with that nice warm blood you'd love to sink your teeth into."

Fred looked out at him confused. "What's going on, why am I in here."

"Enough chatter for today I've got things to do, whatever you're trying to pull today I haven't got time for it." He held a glass and straw up to her. "Now open your mouth."

"Wesley?" Fred looked at him pleadingly. "God it's good to see you. I don't know what's happening but please you've got to talk to me."

"Look I've had about enough of this. You can either keep this crap up or be good and drink your blood quietly and without fuss."

"What? Drink my what?"

"All right then fine. If you really think I'm stupid enough to fall for another one of your sick, twisted, perverted…" Wesley yelled at her furiously.

"That's it. You go hungry today." He took the glass away from her.

"God and to think last month I was so close…" He sighed. "I don't think it'll ever work."

He slammed the door shut.

"Please, Wesley why can't you stay?" Fred called out into the dark. "Oh god, don't say what you're saying, how can I be a vampire?"

Apocalyptic Los Angeles…

Lilah walked along with Illyria through the ruined city.

"So Fred, you're saying you don't remember me?" Lilah asked.

"I have never before seen nor heard you. I do, however, remember you, just not in the context to which you refer, and I have already warned you not to call me Fred."

"Right, because you're not really Fred but some ancient goddess…"

Illyria glared at her when she said this.

Lilah reiterated. "Sorry… some ancient god-king reborn in Fred's body, with hers and Wesley's and even Spikes memories; You know I should just think you're crazy because it's not level headed, even crazy for me, to believe you're not crazy in the head and are totally on the level about all of this."

She trudged alongside Illyria. "Then again maybe I am the crazy one following you."

"I do not have all of Wesley's memories, only those that pertain to Fred."

"Wait that doesn't make sense." Lilah turned to her perplexed. "How do you know so much about me?"

"His thoughts regarding you are often intertwined with those of that of Fred."

Lilah looked down thoughtfully upon hearing this. "Oh."

"Why do you no longer wish to serve the Wolf, Ram and Hart?" Illyria asked.

"Honey, I was never in it for Wolfram and Hart or anybody else but me. They just made me the best offer for my services."

"So why do you wish to leave, or as you called it, be rescued from them?"

"Hey you're the one who talked about recue, I was using your words not mine; At least they were sorta your words."

Lilah smiled softly. "When I saw you there after all this time, it was like miracle in the midst of hell."

"Which it probably is, years have passed, so many huge events have taken place; I mean we're in the middle of the apocalypse." Lilah gestured to the devastation all around them.

"The truth is the things that used to matter to me, the things I thought I wanted from life, I no longer want. I don't know that I ever really wanted them."

"Of course you don't find that out until you've achieved your goals to find out that you're not really any happier then you were before. If anything…"

She looked at Illyria approach the wreck of a building. "Um, where are we going, I thought we were going to see Wesley?"

"Wesley is dead."

"Oh." She furled her brow. "But you said…"

Illyria held up her hand to silence Lilah. "I need to seek out Fred, she is nearby I can feel her."

"Fred? I thought you were Fred."

"I am referring to the other Fred."

"Other?" Lilah furled her brow. "Dead Fred?"

Illyria turned back to her. "How do you know Fred is deceased?"

Wesley's Basement…

"So you don't remember that you're dead?" Wesley scoffed. "You're saying that you have no recollection at all of the last few years or…"

"Oh I remember dying all right, but like I said it wasn't…" Fred responded.

Suddenly an alarm started to sound.

Wesley shut the door and went over to a desk. The room was filled by weird cryptic symbols covering the walls.

"Well looks like she was right; there's someone outside approaching now." Wes looked at a computer monitor with the image of Lilah and Illyria on it.

Suddenly the outside door to the basement shelter was pounded. It buckled in and fell to the ground.

Illyria walked into the basement of the ruined building with Lilah.

The moment Illyria had her back turned to him Wesley withdrew a hypodermic needle and plunged it into her neck, then in a swift motion withdrew a pistol from a holster and pointed it at Lilah.

"Now we'll see what's really going…" He stopped as he saw Illyria turn around and look at him puzzled.

"On?" Wesley looked down at the hypodermic with its needle all crumpled and bend in.

Illyria looked at Wes with confusion. "You tried to harm me?"

"Don't come any closer or I'll…" Wesley leveled the gun at her.

He looked at her coldly and remotely. "Blow your head off."

She smiled sweetly at Wesley. "You are my Wesley you could never…"

The next instant he fired the gun.

Illyria stood open mouthed as she reached up to her forehead and plucked the distorted bullet from where it had embedded itself in her skin as if it were made of Kevlar.

"No something is wrong, you are not him. You are not my Wesley."

Looking at her with both fear and anger Wesley pulled the trigger repeatedly, emptying the gun into Illyria.

The bullets struck her as she walked towards him. He retreated backwards in fear.

She reached out and stroked his face gently. "What has happened to change those eyes that once seemed to worship me?"

At this he lowered the smoking pistol and gave her a puzzled look.

He eyed her curiously. "You're not really Fred, are you?"

"Boy you're quick Sherlock." Lilah stepped forward. "And here I thought you were supposed to be the real brains of your former little band."

"Who is she and what is she doing here?" Wesley stammered.

"As memory serves I believe you know Miss Morgan rather well." Illyria motioned to her. "She is here because I have… rescued her."

"Actually I wasn't talking to you." Wesley opened a small panel cut into a slot in a door. He spoke into it. "Do you recognize her? Is this the one you've been raving about, the goddess from an alternate reality you supposedly came here with."

"That's what she told me." Lilah said. "She was reborn into Fred's body."

"Good explanation, the problem is you're lying because I happen to have Fred's body." He opened a small door which had the access panel attached, inside was Fred chained and manacled in the closet.

"You locked her away in the closet?" Lilah furled her brow.

"Actually he has kinda a thing for chaining women in his closet." Fred replied laconically.

"Wow who'd of guessed?" Lilah smirked. "Although with your figure it almost is like having a skeleton in the closet."

"I don't understand. You're alive in this reality?" Fred asked.

"Illyria told me that in your timeline I guess I got…" Lilah drew her finger across her throat and vocalized. "Shik."

"Actually the blow struck lower," Illyria pointed at a spot on Lilah's neck. "About here."

"Oh." Lilah gulped.

"Lilah Morgan has agreed to help us in return for sanctuary." Illyria stated.

"You really expect me to believe that?" Wesley huffed at Lilah. "Where's Angelus and your pal Hamilton; ready to barge in here on your signal?"

"Hopefully they won't be here for a long time but when Hamilton catches up with Angel they'll come looking for me."

Wesley shook his head sceptically. "So after achieving all your goals, at the point of an almost ensured victory, you're going to throw in the towel? Come on you can't expect me to be that stupid."

"I can't do it anymore." Lilah looked up at him helplessly. "It's Angel, he's too far gone. He's absolutely out of control."

"I don't buy it Lilah." Wesley scoffed. "You had no problem with getting Angel to kill his infant son and start this whole fiasco off. Then for years afterward you've sat back while Angel committed one atrocity after another and now suddenly…"

"Hold on, you say this started when?" Fred yelled from the closet.

"Years ago, the night Angel killed Connor and Gunn and…" Wesley looked down. "Several others, including a large assortment of freelance vampire hunters among them a woman whom by coincidence had severely severed my throat only weeks before."

Wesley rubbed his neck where a scar showed. "Of course he'd of cut my throat too probably if I'd been there."

"You weren't there? But that's impossible." Fred looked up at him from where she was chained. "You took Connor, kidnapped him that night to save him from Angel, 'the father will kill the son' it was in the prophesy of the Nyazian scrolls, remember."

"No, I'm afraid I don't remember." Wes narrowed his eyes. "I never actually got hold of the scrolls."

Before…

Lilah talked into the telephone as she walked down the hall. "Yes I'm at the courthouse now I just talked to her…"

Lilah turned the corner and looked on in surprise at the orange jump suited Wesley; he was attended by a guard.

Wesley talked into telephone. "Look I know I may not technically be with the Watcher's Council anymore."

"Yes well I am about to be sent before a judge to provide an explanation for being caught carrying a host of tools used for burglary while inside the dwelling of a well-known collector of occult. I can't possible tell the judge the truth now can I?"

"Don't tell me there's nothing you can do. I know for a fact that the Council has the contacts that would be able to get these types of charges dismissed."

"So you're just going to let me rot then." Wesley huffed. "I should have known better then to waste my phone call on you."

"No, no that's everything I shan't bother you any longer. Um, my best to mother." Wesley hung up the phone.

He turned around. "Lilah? Um what are you doing here?"

"My job, I just went to talk to a client I'm defending, the real question is what are you doing here?"

"It's nothing, at least nothing you need to be concerned with."

"Doesn't seem like you want Angel to be concerned with it either if you're turning elsewhere for help."

"It's all a big mix-up."

"I'd say don't you have somebody more adept at burglary working with you."

"I was going to take Gunn with me but…"

The guard suddenly interrupted. "You stashed a firearm used in your burglary attempt?"

"Hey!" Lilah leaned over to the guard. "You can't use anything he tells me, attorney client privilege."

"You're not my lawyer, Lilah."

"Fair enough, but it sure sounds like you could really use the help of a good, well connected, attorney like myself."

"I don't suppose this help would come cheap?"

"Yes well, I'm more of a 'quid pro quo' then a 'pro bono' kinda gal."

"You can forget it. I won't betray Angel, by suddenly dealing with Wolfram and Hart."

"Well you wouldn't be, you'd be dealing with me not the company I work for."

"You don't do anything out of the kindness of your heart."

"No you're right. But I feel at heart we're of a kind. Some part of me thinks that you're worth it, that underneath everything you're the most corruptible of the lot of you."

"I could use your help." Lilah twirled her hair. "I'm having trouble with the case I'm working on. I just went to see my client. Lenore Hainsley. She's the daughter of one of Wolfram and Hart's best clients."

"Hainsley? She's Magnus Hainsley's daughter?"

"She's his daughter not him, just because she was born to an evil necromancer doesn't mean she's like him, she's not."

"I'm far beyond prejudging anyone based on their parentage. What's she being tried for?"

"Killing a police officer."

Wesley turned to the guard. "I'm ready to go back to my cell now."

Lilah called after him. "It was an accident, well mostly. When the group of police moved in to arrest her she struggled so violently that she managed to throw one of the officers down. He hit his head when he fell and…"

Wesley turned to the guard. "Just a moment."

Wesley turned back to Lilah. "It took a lot to subdue her. Is she a powerful athlete or does she possess any special training?"

Lilah shook her head. "This girl is mouser than that Texas twig you work with."

"Ah, so this fit of violent strength was drug induced?"

"All evidence suggests so, blood and urine screenings were positive for levels so high they should have killed her. In fact they probably would have had she not been hospitalised just after her arrest. The thing of it is though she swears she had not been using drugs."

"It would not be unlike a drug addict to lie about such things."

"True but I don't think she is; I've met more than my share of addicts as a defence attorney and she does not fit the profile; besides the circumstantial evidence doesn't jive with the physical evidence."

"The tox screens show that she had been using steadily increasing amounts of the drug over the past two days, unusually high doses that should have affected behavior. However while she attended and even lectured at seminar throughout those two days, none of the witnesses said she gave any indication of being impaired right up until the time she had her 'episode'."

"What does the girl recall of all this?"

"Nothing, everything was uneventful then suddenly she felt strange. She no sooner realized that she had been drugged before she blacked out. She remembers nothing that happened after that. She just woke up in the hospital."

"She's convinced somebody drugged her." Lilah frowned.

"Why?" Wesley asked.

"If I knew that I wouldn't be here talking to you. This case has turned and I think the only way I can get an acquittal is to prove that she didn't purposefully take the drugs."

Wesley furled his brow. "You don't really care about this girl do you?"

"To me she's just the daughter of an important client. But to you I suspect she might be a little bit more damsel in distress."

Wesley nodded. "The night before the seminar did Lenore meet with her father at all, perhaps have a meal with him?"

"I think she mentioned that she had dinner with her father and some friends of his the night before."

Wesley took off his glasses and cleaned them. "The increasing levels of the drug in her system could easily be explained by introducing the drug in a time release formula; much like capsule cold medication does. With time-release a medication can steadily enter the bloodstream for several days after initial ingestion. "

"Yes but how can somebody on such a large amount of drugs function normally?" Lilah prodded.

"Most drugs of addiction work by targeting and binding with certain types receptor sites in the brain to create their intoxicating effect." Wesley put his glasses back on.

"But if one introduces an inert antagonist form of that drug then it will, in effect, act as an antidote to the drug; these inert forms of the drug fill up the same receptor sites in the brain that the real drugs bind with but they are inert produce no intoxicating effect. Moreover if drugs are already present in the system these inert forms knock the real drugs out of those receptor sites."

"So you're saying that she could have been completely drugged out the entire time but felt no effects…"

"Yes exactly." Wes folded his arms. "Until these inert forms were metabolized out of her system, which could have happened quite suddenly. The effect would be as you described, she would have had a sudden and profound drug overdose out of the blue."

"So you're saying someone was trying to kill her?"

"It's possible but I think the more likely target was Hainsey himself, if I were you I'd do more investigating on who attended this dinner party of Hainsey's."

"All right." She turned to him. "Thanks Wes."

He turned his back on her as the guard led him away. "I didn't do it for you…"

The Present.

"You should be thanking me." Lilah turned to Wes. "I was the one who pulled strings to see you were released."

"Thank you?" Wes looked to her with exasperation. "I give you information meant to save an innocent woman and you twist that knowledge so that you can properly spike Angel's blood."

"Wait Angel's pig blood was spiked with Connor's blood." Fred noted from the closet.

"Yeah that was Sahjhan's idea." Lilah explained. "Truth is I didn't think just that would work. Despite the simpering wimp he could be, Angel was clever and never that easy to fool. Give him enough time to figure out what's going on, he'd get wise and before you know it he'd be knocking at my door."

"So you spiked Angel's blood with both Connors blood and some kind of drug?" Fred quizzed.

Lilah smirked. "I had the lab boys work it up; an offshoot of a mystical drug called Orpheus but without all the crazy side effects. Still it needs to be mixed with human blood to be effective."

"Problem with that is that it's really too potent a drug for humans to handle."

"Yet earlier I witnessed Angel lying upon you…" Illyria paused as looked at Lilah. "Drinking from you and it seemed that you satisfied his cravings."

Lilah looked back at her uncomfortably. "Yes."

"Sahjhan said he went back in time and rewrote the prophesy." Fred explained. "I always thought 'the father will kill the son' was one of the parts he changed. Sahjhan's real plan was to kill Connor, but because of what Wesley did before, even if you used that drug Lilah, Connor would have been saved."

"Wait now that you mention it. Angel got all crazy one day and started a big fight with Sahjhan, accusing him of planning to kill his son. I didn't think much of it at the time." Lilah rolled her eyes. "He accused a lot of people of a lot of things. The drugs made him pretty paranoid."

Lilah looked over to Wesley. "When all this started I could've kissed you for giving me that idea. I had a foolproof way of getting Angel to work for Wolfram and Hart. Hell he not only worked for us, he became the CEO."

"It's the effect of the curse. The drugs simulate perfect happiness, although Angel doesn't really lose his soul, as long as the drugs are effective the effect is that the Angel persona becomes buried and the Angelus persona comes to the fore." Wesley responded.

"The flaw with your plan is that the drugs would eventually become less and less effective as Angel develops a tolerance."

Lilah glanced back at Wesley. "You shoulda told me that part before I might never have started this awful mess."

"Angelus was great at first. He planned his moves carefully and because there was always some Angel in him he held back from needless bloodshed. Our forces took several key locations with subterfuge and cunning."

"Then as the drugs started to take their toll he became more erratic and he started to show all the classic signs of addictive behavior. The drugs used to stimulate the change to Angelus changed Angelus so that only drugs could stimulate him."

"It was like the two halves of him had broken down." Lilah continued. "Angelus was becoming crazier and more bloodthirsty and Angel…"

Lilah looked down sadly. "And Angel started to regress."

"At first he called me Lilah, like normal. Then at odd times he would call me Cordelia." She looked down sadly. "That went on for a while until he actually started to think I was her."

"And then it was Buffy and then Darla, I mean, Cordy was a brunette at least."

"What happened to Cordy?" Fred asked. "She wasn't there that night right?"

Lilah shook her head. "She's gone, like the others."

Illyria interrupted. "He called you mother…"

Lilah ignored her. "Anyway, I have a small bio-chip…"

She pointed to the back of her head at the base of the neck. "It filters the drug before it passes through the blood brain barrier."

Wesley interrupted. "So you're able to inject the drug in vast doses without it ever really affecting you? The drug never really gets to your brain?"

"Exactly. Well now that chip is going to become a major problem for us unless you can remove it."

"Why?" Wesley asked.

"There's a homing beacon in it."

Lilah lay front down on a table Wesley stood over her with a scalpel in his hand.

He looked at the base of her neck at the device "I think I see it, some kind of organic electronic hybrid. Are you sure it's safe to remove?"

"Yeah I've had mine replaced a couple of times now. The organic tissue is eventually burned away by the drugs. It wasn't designed to be used in this way."

"When it's removed any residual drugs in your system will start to affect you."

"I might be a bit loopy but I'm sure to sober up quite quickly. Although my motor function will be defunct for a bit. I'm afraid I might stumble about drunkenly for a time."

"C'mon Wesley let me out of here." Fred yelled from where she was still tied up in the closet.

"Not on your unlife. I've been fooled by you before. How do I know you're not really pretending?"

"How much more evidence do you need that I'm not from this timeline?" Fred said exasperated. "I don't have any memory of what this vampire version of Fred did to you. But I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? You supposedly don't even know what you're sorry about."

Wesley looked to them all. "For years now I've done all I could to re-ensoul Fred. I figured that if I could get her back before she killed anyone that it wouldn't be too traumatic an ordeal for her, moreover unburdened by any guilt her soul would still be 'saved', as it were."

"It would take great amounts of dark power to reclaim it wholesale as Spikes was." Wes turned to Fred. "I would have to curse you in the same way the gypsies had. But the problem is that sort of magic always has an adverse effect built into it; A sort of cursed blessing. For Angel it was true happiness."

"And your desire for Fred's happiness was greater than your desire for Fred herself." Illyria added.

Wes continued. "Yes I suppose it was, still the spell needed a counterbalance and I couldn't think of one that was guaranteed not to happen. In fact if you were cursed to lose your soul if you, let's say, judged a poodle contest in Rome. Somehow inevitably your destiny will become to someday judge that poodle contest in Rome."

"I thought I had come up with a foolproof one a month ago but had no luck, at least I thought I hadn't. "

"The soul of Fred I saw floating in time, the one I grabbed for, the one Illyria and I followed." Fred surmised. "I must have slowed its path altered the time of its arrival in your world."

Wes looked up at her. "Well that's more convincing, but still not near enough for me to take the shackles off."

"Well we're not going to save the world by just sitting here tied up." Fred noted.

"I agree." Lilah nodded. "We must do something soon, the longer we wait the more time Angel has to find us."

"And where do you suppose we go?" Wes said exasperated. "If you hadn't noticed most of the world has already been destroyed unless we undestroy it, there's not anything useful out there."

Fred's eyes lit up. "Of course, we can fix this. We can undestroy the world. Um is undestroy a real word?"

Wes looked to her questioningly. "How can you undo what's already done."

"By not letting it happen in the first place. All this happened because you didn't kidnap Connor like you were supposed to."

"You're mad. It's this one…" Wesley pointed at Lilah. "That's responsible for everything."

"No, no she may be right." Lilah shook her head. "It was Connor that sent Angel over the edge. I don't think he'd of killed Connor any other night but that one. It was the first time that he was drugged, he acted very differently that night then all the others, well up until recently anyway."

"I think even Angelus regretted killing Connor. Both ultimately would have liked to mold him in their image, train Connor to fight alongside him."

Lilah continued. "I think Fred's right although Angel would've been able to recover from killing Lorne, Fred and Gunn; the apocalypse started the moment Angel killed Connor."

"Have you not heard anything I said?" Wesley raised his hands in exasperation. "That was years ago! What do you suppose we do about it now?"

"We have the power to travel through time." Fred pointed at Illyria.

"I'm afraid I have expended too much energy to do so anymore. Yet on our journey to this basement I passed by an old..."

Illyria paused to find the right word. "Acquaintance… of mine that might be of benefit for our needs."

Suddenly the door which had been propped up again was thrown down and Hamilton stepped into the room.

He turned to Lilah. "Ah here you are, getting aid and comfort from the enemy."

"Looks like our times up." Lilah shrugged.

Illyria stepped up to face Hamilton. "You will not take her."

"Oh I will take her all right, then I'm going to shoot her full of this." He held up a hypodermic needle.

Then he pulled on a cable he had in his other hand.

Angel with a metal collar around his neck attached to the cable, stumbled into the basement half walking, half crawling.

"And feed her to him." Hamilton continued.

"Hey you may get my soul but unlike this poor girl." Lilah pointed to Fred. "My body's still mine."

Illyria swung at Hamilton.

He stepped out of the way easily. "Oh what's this?"

"A big scary old one?" He kicked Illyria to the floor.

Illyria quickly sprang to her feet and stepped up to Hamilton again.

As Hamilton and Illyria traded blows Illyria called behind her. "Although I have more energy stored than before. I do not think I can hold off Hamilton for long. Wesley you must release Fred."

"Damned if I'm going to let that thing loose." Wesley picked up a sword to arm himself.

"Please, Wesley it's really me." Fred pleaded from the closet.

"And end up being your undead lackey? No thanks."

Lilah looked toward him. "Wes, she's right Fred's the only one who's got a chance."

Hamilton looked down at Illyria's battered form. "Let me say this as clearly as I can. You cannot beat me. I am a part of them, the Wolf, Ram and Hart, their strength flows through my veins. My blood… urk"

Hamilton gasped as Fred grabbed him from behind and sunk her teeth into him.

She flipped off of him. "Yeah, yeah, yeah I've heard this speech before, dumbass."

From her prone position Illyria cut the legs out from under Hamilton, and he fell prone to the ground. Fred quickly fell on top of him and rained blow after blow down on his head.

They all looked on curiously as Fred hit Hamilton repeatedly far after he'd already gone limp

Wesley approached her. "Fred, that's enough he's already…"

Fred looked up at him with her vampire face. Wesley drew back in alarm.

She started to breath more slowly and she her face converted back to that of Fred's.

Then Fred looked over at Illyria, a giant smile came across her face.

In the next instant she flung herself at Illyria.

As Illyria lay prone she attempted to pummel her as she had Hamilton.

Illyria lay dazed for a moment, and then flipped Fred off of her.

She dealt out a series of blows in succession that brought Fred to her knees.

Illyria looked down at Fred. "A very worthy effort; But for all of the strength of Hamilton you now possess, I have lifetimes worth of knowledge and skill you lack. It would be as if I tried to best you in the knowledge of your sciences."

Fred smirked at Illyria and turned away as if relenting; then suddenly Fred turned and punched Illyria in the face, again dropping her to the floor. "That's for stealing my body; I'd let you have more but I don't want to mar my pretty features."

Illyria smiled as she looked up at her. "You truly were worthy."

She then swept the feet out from under Fred.

Lilah had gone over to where Angel had curled in a fetal position and cradled him in her arms.

"Mother, mother it hurts so much." Angel wined. "I can't take the pain."

"You won't have to much longer my child." Lilah ran her hand along his head stroking it gently.

She took his trembling hands into hers.

Angel looked down in surprise. "I thought it was forbidden."

"A grave sin is what father always called it." Angel stared at the wooden stake in his hands. Lilah guided the point to his chest.

"You've said so haven't you father? Countless times…" He looked up at Wesley.

Wesley looked to Lilah in confusion.

Lilah jostled her head in Angel's direction urging Wesley on.

"I did. I did son. But you know you have a beast in you. A beast I no longer believe you have the capacity to control. And I think maybe that might be my fault."

"No father, you always told me to be righteous, I didn't listen I let my heathen whims control me, I'm weak father…"

Lilah looked to Wesley pleadingly; she whispered. "Please, I can't…"

Wesley's hands replaced Lilah's upon the shaft of the stake pressed against Angel's heart.

"You know what a good father does." Wesley looked down at Angel. "He protects his son."

Angel looked down in shame.

Wesley pulled his chin back up. "Well I never could protect you. But I mean to keep Conner safe. I'll make sure none of this ever happens to him."

"You would do that father?" Tears ran from Angel's face.

Angel smiled weakly. "If Connor lives, then Liam can die."

"I gave him an Irish name; I knew you'd be proud of that."

"I am son. I am." Wesley thrust the stake into him and he exploded in a puff of ash.

Apocalyptic Los Angeles…

They approached the hamburger stand; Illyria threw out her hand forcefully and said in a stern commanding tone. "Hear me you of the Loa for I command you to do my bidding."

The plastic hamburger statue continued to remain inert.

Lilah bend over to Illyria. "Um, I think they're closed, there's nobody there to take your order."

"Be silent." Illyria held up her hand to Lilah but did not turn to face her.

"I command you to appear and do my bidding."

"Ok maybe deciding to follow the crazy blue Fred was a bad idea. Does anybody else know what we should do?" Lilah turned to Fred and Wes.

"No, I think I know what's happening." Wesley stepped forward. "What Illyria's doing is calling on the Loa, the guardians of truth and destiny, of time, as it were."

"Well they don't seem to be answering. She might not have been that scary of an old one."

At this Illyria turned to Lilah with fury. "When our kind ruled the earth I was the most feared of them all. The Loa were among all the other beings, my subjects. They bowed supplicant before me."

"Yeah well, that was then and this is now."

Illyria smiled at this. "Yes of course…"

She turned back to the statue. "At present I do not rule, my dominion over things has ended, and yet we both know that things will not always be as they are now. And so I command you to appear before me less some harm may come to you in the future."

"Apologies great old one. Our once and future king." The hamburger twisted and grew, coming to life. "I know what you would bid me do, to bring you to the past of the human male whose return I have expected."

Perplexed, Wesley looked up at the giant hamburger. "Return? I'm pretty sure I've never stopped by here before, even on the drive through."

"Foolish mortal!" The giant hamburger statue stretched out towards Wesley menacingly. "You only think you know things. Foolish you will remain until you realize that the only thing you really know, is that you know nothing."

"Profound but paradoxical." Wesley noted.

"All is absurdity." The Loa glared down at him. "Truth lies only in paradox."

"As I have revealed to you and shall do again until all that is, is no more, beware the signs, upheaval, fire, blood."

"At last the portents are again presented as in the past, and again alas you shall not prevent what is to pass."

"There are times that you do as providences bids you, even if providence bids you by your own free will." Illyria said stoically.

"Wisely spoken old one." The Loa replied. "If yet unwisely unheeded. But as it is, one must abide by fortune's bidding even to forbidding fortunes."

At this the giant hamburger opened its cavernous mouth wide open. Illyria stepped inside the blackness.

"So we just go into the mouth of the giant talking hamburger?" Fred asked as she followed Illyria.

"If this this isn't the very definition of irony, being eaten by a hamburger?" Lilah sighed as Wesley helped her walk in the blackness.

They appeared on the other side, again emerging out of the hamburgers mouth. The three of them stared at each other.

Wesley looked around. "Illyria's not here and it's dark already…"

He looked back up to the talking hamburger. "What time is it and where is she?"

"You have already lived this day. You know the answers human; now trouble the Loa no more." The statue shrunk and returned to its normal form.

"Oh god no, I don't think there's enough time." Wesley turned to them in worry. "We're going to have to flag down a ride and get to the hotel as quickly as possible. We may already be too late."

"What do you mean?" Lilah wobbled unsteadily, gripping Wesley for support. "The Loa didn't send us back far enough? Where's Illyria?"

"Don't worry I've got a pretty good idea where she is." Wesley turned to Fred. "Although you almost had me convinced that I hallucinated the whole thing."

"Huh what are you talking about?" Fred furled her brow.

Earlier…

Lilah sat in her car looking out at the driveway. She talked into a cellphone. "Yes I know how important tonight is, I just want to check something out first. I'll be there, have everything ready."

Suddenly Illyria appeared at her passenger window. "Lilah Morgan? I thought I would find you here. I suspect you are here to ensure that Wesley stays home and does not get involved in the plans you've sent in motion for tonight."

"Plans?"

"Yes for Angel."

"How do you?" Lilah furled her brow at looked at Illyria with concern. "Fred you don't look right. Did you happen to receive a sharp blow to the head?"

Illyria opened the car door and sat herself in the passenger seat.

"I know there is something I must relay to you, I suspect it is this…"

Before…

Wesley tumbled off of Lilah exhausted, breathing heavily he stared up at the ceiling.

Lilah immediately slipped out from under the sheets, got up and started to dress herself.

"You're leaving?" Wesley turned to her, propping himself up by the elbow.

"What do you expect? For me to stay the night again and snuggle with you?"

Wesley sighed. "Lilah why do we keep playing these games? You want to stay, I want you to stay …"

He folded back the sheets. "So get your arse back in here."

Lilah shrugged and slipped back under the covers and slid over to him.

"You know these sleepovers are happening a little too often, I might have to leave a toothbrush." Lilah smiled as she laid her head upon his bare chest.

"That'll be the day."

"C'mon we aren't that different, we're both willing to do what's necessary to get the job done."

"True, but for me the job, the mission, is something I believe in. While you may have a vested interest in the plans of the senior partners, their goal isn't something you actually share. You don't give a damn about apocalypse or the conquest of humanity, you just want your rewards for the work you did. What are they offering you the equivalent of your own country?"

"Something like that."

"Do you really think that will make you happy?"

"Damn right it'll make me happy."

"Really?" Wesley scoffed. "You know you couldn't be more wrong. The truth is you're too much like me, so single-minded in the pursuit of your goal that everything else gets lost in the minutia. Even if I cared to I couldn't stop you from heading down the path you've chosen, even one you'll eventually regret."

"You really think I don't know my own mind? "

"I think you've become quite good at looking the other way."

"And here I thought I was with you because of your brains not your good looks."

"No, I suspect it's my good heart not my good looks. I would guess I'm exactly the type of man you would find attractive, it's doubtless that's why you polished my desk with Angel. Actually you're probably here because you know that I'll never really choose you in the end; perhaps not even if you change to please me. You're here because you know it's doomed."

Wesley stroked her hair. "You can't afford to have personal relationships in your line of work."

"Hey you're the one who called it a relationship, not me."

Wesley continued as he gazed up at the ceiling. "You tell yourself that it's the cost of doing business, but when that day comes it will all be yours, everything you've denied yourself, everyone you've denied yourself. It will be worth it."

"And it will." Lilah got up on her elbows to face him.

"No it won't, it can't because all of this is something that you've told yourself you want, when what you really want is a very simple domestic life. An adoring and loyal husband and plenty of children you can dote on."

"What?" Lilah pushed herself away from him. "Are you serious?"

"Sunday baking, kisses and bandages to quickly soothe mind abrasions, the whole nine yard sales."

Lilah glared at him furiously. "I'm deeply insulted. You know I expect that kind of thing from some of the chauvinist jerks at work, but I expect a little more sense from somebody as supposedly enlightened as you. So I'm supposed to not really want freedom and independence but really would be much happier being a dutiful Martha Stewart for my man."

"What I'm saying applies to you; I'm not saying it applies to all women."

"Like Fred for instance?"

"This is not about Fred… Where are you going?" Wesley looked to see Lilah get out of bed and start to get dressed again.

"If you think I'm going to spend the night after being insulted like that."

He got up to stop her, he grabbed her wrist forcefully. "No you're not leaving, not until I say so."

"What are you my father now?"

"Curiously, I rather think I'm not that far removed from him. On the nights that you are so obviously forced to snuggle with me, the one constant thing you speak about, the only thing I've heard you talk about with any emotion, are the tales you relay from your family, from your childhood."

"My family? Are you crazy? What happened with my family was a disaster."

"Yes it was afterwards, but not before. I think what you really want is to create a scenario where what happened to your family won't happen to you again and the only real way to ensure that happens is to have the power to make it happen."

"Yeah and what's wrong with that? If you have power you can get anything you want from life."

"That's just not the way it works. "

"You don't get it. When that day comes I can have anything or anyone I want. If I wanted Tom Cruise…" She snapped her fingers. "Like that."

"You want Tom Cruise?"

"No not really, he'd be hell on the furniture, but if I could get Tom Cruise why would I bother with someone like you?"

"He's just a famous movie actor; you don't care about him at all." Wesley began to kiss her neck.

"I on the other hand..." He kissed her and pulled her back down onto the bed.

"I do like the idea of you wanting to rescue me from this regretful mistake I'm making." Lilah nuzzled his neck. "If things were different would you? Would you rescue me?"

Now…

Illyria sat across from Lilah in the passenger seat.

"That is some story; you don't expect me to really buy it?"

"I do not seek payment for this information."

"All right crazy blue Fred nice talking to you but I've…"

"Yes I know you have to attend to the arrangements for Angelus tonight. I shall leave you to it."

"How do you know about…?" Lilah pulled out a gun. "I'm sorry Fred I can't let you leave here with that information."

"I have told you I am not Fred, moreover I have no wish to try and prevent tonight's events from occurring." Illyria reached out for the gun.

Lilah shook the pistol at Illyria. "Back off or I'll…"

Illyria took the gun and bent the metal.

"Oh shoot…" Lilah looked on in shock.

"You're not Fred!" Lilah looked over at her in fear. "What the hell are you?"

Illyria glanced at her perturbed. "I have already explained all of this to you…"

"Now I will be off." Illyria opened the car door. "You can leave here now, I will see to it that he does not get involved."

Wesley's Apartment…

A clean cut, spectacled Wesley opened the door to his apartment.

He looked up in alarm as he took the keys from the door. "Fred? What are you doing…?"

Then he stood in amazement as a Fred faced Illyria retaining no clothing only her blue eyes stood up out of the chair she was reclining in.

"You're naked!" Wes stared wide eyed.

He tried to avert his eyes. "What happened? What are you doing here? Not that it's not nice to see you."

He glanced her way again and again looked away in embarrassment. "To see you in person I mean; not see you, ya know, naked."

"Do you not like my appearance this way?" Illyria approached him. "You have fantasized about this scenario a number of times and found it most arousing. Sometimes I am dressed in an assortment of rather impractical apparel ranging from spiked collars to spike heeled footwear; however on such short notice I was unable to obtain such accruements."

Wesley peeked out through the slits of his fingers as he covered his face. "Um, what about Gunn?"

"You wish him to join us? " Illyria smiled.

Wesley looked at her slightly befuddled. "Join us?"

Illyria held up her hand. "Sorry I'm mistaken, that was not one of your fantasies."

She reached out and turned Wesley's head to face her. "Does not my appearance please you?"

"Your eyes?"

"They are colored contacts; I wanted to see you better amid the heat of passion."

"Do they not make my eyes look beautiful?"

"Your eyes have always been beautiful to me." Wesley looked to her in awe.

Illyria smiled at this and bent up to kiss him.

Wes pulled back from her slightly giving her a puzzled look. "Your voice it seems lower somehow."

"It is…um, my deep sexy voice." Illyria nibbled on his ear. "Does it not please you?"

"Oh, on the contrary; your deep seep sexy voice is…" Wesley began to kiss her neck.

Wesley grabbed her and threw her onto the bed.

He looked down at the Fred faced Illyria. "Deeply sexy."

The Hyperion Hotel…

Fred, Lilah and Wesley ran breathlessly inside the Hyperion hotel.

"Oh god, oh god, it's true." Fred looked on in horror. "It's too late."

They gazed upon a mess of bodies.

"They're all dead." Fred looked down at the forms of Gunn and Lorne dead on the ground. It looked like half of Gunn's face was missing.

"All of them." Fred stood over a bloody blanket with a teddy bear sprawled on top of it.

Wesley looked down at the form of a woman with red hair wearing a leather jacket. A dagger stuck out of her throat. He bent down to her. "Justine, well if this isn't ironic."

Fred looked around. "Where's Holtz?"

"Who?" Lilah asked.

The leader of this little band.

"Oh the guy from Sunnydale?" Lilah pointed at a short figure in a fur collared leather jacket laying on the ground.

"Sunnydale?" Fred turned him over.

She looked down at the figure in confusion. "That's not Holtz."

Fred folded her arms. "Ok this makes no sense, where's Holtz? Sahjhan brought Holtz back."

"I have no idea who this Holtz character is." Lilah intoned. "Sahjhan was brought in by me as outside help. It was all part of a deal for making him and this band of demons he led corporeal again for the big showdown. "

"This Sahjhan character." Lilah explained. "He's a big-time shifting demon."

"Yes we know."

"So anyway he comes to me and tells me that in his travels through time he came across a method of converting Angel to the dark side by simply feeding him his own son's blood. He'd been to the future of this reality and said it was a sure fire way of bringing about the apocalypse."

"Naturally I was a little apprehensive about the plan that he came to me with." She surveyed the carnage around her. "Kinda worked like a charm though."

Before…

"Rrr like a cat." Lilah scratched at her solo reflection in the mirror behind the bar. "Can't hear you, but I'm starting to feel when your near."

She turned around to face Angel. "Isn't that nice and creepy."

"My own son Lilah? How could you."

"It's my job." Lilah smiled as looked back into the mirror showing only herself.

She glanced at the clock above the mirror. "And I do my job, very well."

Angel clutched his head. "What? What did you?"

He collapsed on the floor. "God, I feel sooo good."

Angel shook his head as if trying to clear it. "No, this is not so good, not good at all."

"This is great!" He rose from the floor and raised his hands over his head in triumph.

"Wow, this is really killer stuff, which is great because I have the stuff of a really great killer."

Lilah turned to face him. She had a paper contract and a pen in her hand. "Angelus you look like a winning team kinda guy…"

The Hyperion Hotel…

Angel walked into the hotel.

Lorne called out to him. "So how'd your meeting go with queen beeoot-" Lorne stopped dead as Lilah stepped into the hotel behind Angel.

Lorne winced in alarm. "That is not a good sign."

Angel looked at the basket. He picked up the baby inside. "Hey little guy, its feeding time."

Lorne eyed Angel nervously. "I think he's already had his bottle."

"I wasn't talking about feeding him." Angel gave Lorne an evil smile.

Angel handed the baby to Lilah. "Juice him."

"Angel are you sure you want to do this?" Lilah looked up at Angel in alarm. "This is your son."

Lorne rushed over to them. "Angel what are you doing?"

"Don't call me Angel" He snapped at Lorne, showing his vampire features.

Lorne froze in terror.

Angelus turned back to Lilah. "As long as the kid is alive Angel will have hope. Kill the kid and he ain't never coming back. Now do what I tell you, juice him."

Lorne attempted to grab Connor from them. "God help me, you let Connor go or I'll..urk."

Angel shot out his hand around Lorne's throat.

In the next instant a snap emitted from his neck. Angel released Lorne and his dead body slumped to the ground.

He called down to the slumped figure. "I'm letting you off easy I should've made you eat until your stomach burst for all those endlessly annoying pastry nicknames."

"Now do it!" Angelus screamed down at Lilah.

With trembling hands she took the hypodermic needle out and pressed it towards Connor's soft baby skin.

The Hyperion Hotel…

Fred and Gunn opened the door to see Angel holding a small blanket wrapped bundle in his arms with blood dripping from his vampire fangs.

"Oh God Angel, what the hell have you done?" Gunn cautiously approached.

"Oh I dunno?" Angelus tossed the bundle aside. "I had a nice light snack, and made my life a little less complicated."

"Angel you're not yourself right now you know that?" Gunn signalled Fred to get back.

"Am I not myself? Gee I here I was thinking that I'm finally coming into my own."

"Ya see certain people, like myself, have a problem with certain addictions."

"But I decided to change my life, turn things around. I was using for over a hundred years. But I guess I musta finally hit bottom." Angelus grinned.

"Well, I hit the slayer's bottom anyway." He patted Lilah on the behind and she jumped slightly.

"So I finally get myself cleaned up when boom wouldn't you know it I've relapsed again." Angelus strutted around the room.

"Well it's happened a couple of times now, but I mean for it not to happen again. I'm going straight for good this time; But in order to do that I have to stop repeating my old patterns of behavior…"

Angelus kicked at Lorne's body on the floor. "That means things like changing the type of people one hangs around."

"You see their behavior will inevitable affect yours and before you know it you're sliding down that slippery slope again."

"And this time I'm determined to stay clean of that filthy soul habit for good."

"Of course that means using all the time but oh well you take the good with the bad."

Charles launched himself at Angelus; his axe swung over Angelus's head as he ducked.

"Hey Chuck it isn't that bad, hell I'm about to actualize your potential. You are one hell of a fighter and you know how to lead men in battle."

"Furthermore I trust you." Angelus grabbed the axe from Gunn and threw it aside.

"Well I will trust you." Angelus grabbed Gunn from behind and bit into his neck.

Blood dripped from Angelus fangs. "The thing of it is Charles ol' buddy, you have the makings of a seriously bad ass vampire..."

He punctured his wrist and held it to Gunn's mouth.

Gunn slowly reluctantly began to drink.

Suddenly Angelus heard the sound of a gunshot.

He turned to see Fred with a smoking pistol in her hand.

Fred looked at the man she had just shot, and then looked away from her handiwork, visibly sickened by it.

Angelus smirked. "You're about to upchuck cause you blew Chuck up?"

"You shot one of my future lieutenants in the head. Now he's dead and I can't undead the dude."

"I can't undo the deed you did." Angelus tapped his finger on his face. "What indeed to do?"

Angelus walked toward Fred who still pointed the gun at him. "Gunn was a great fighter and was confidently able to lead men from the front."

Fred fired the gun.

Angelus merely smiled at the bullets impact. "It makes a big difference in an army's moral when the soldiers see their commanding officer, dead certain…"

Fred fired the pistol again.

Angelus continued to press toward her. "Sharing the same risk of death, even if he is, ya know, already dead."

"You won't be able to lead from the front, but then again you never had too much up front anyway."

Angelus snatched the pistol from her hand before she could pull the trigger again.

"Uh, uh, uh, no way baby." Angelus waved his finger at her as he sidled up to her

He snuggled up to her, pressing his body against hers. "Um, I figure doing a stick when stoned could really break my boner."

Fred trembled and clutched her arms tightly to her chest. "You don't frighten me. Whatever you try to do won't intimate me."

Angelus whispered in her ear softly. "Darling Fred, I have to say in all honesty, I've been eyeing that neck of yours for quite some time."

"If vampires had porn it would be full of necks just like this." He ran his finger down her neck.

"Knockout Naked Necks for you to Nick if you've the Knack." Angelus ran his hand across the air as if highlighting the words.

"Whatever you're going to do, do it."

"Oh I will. Have no fear."

"I won't, I said I'm not afraid of you. I won't plead with you to let me stay. I won't plead. I'm not afraid."

Angelus just smiled back at her.

Fred looked up at him in fear.

Then she composed herself and said stoically. "Are you going to do it, or are you going to act like a kid playing with his food?"

"I suggest you by the moniker; Fred of the undead." Angelus said.

"I think it's got a real ring to it." Then he bit into her.

"Unhand her beast." An unseen voice called.

Angelus looked up and dropped the lifeless body of Fred to the ground.

"Oh it's you, I supposedly killed your kid and now you're here for revenge right?"

Angelus looked at the man in the fur lined jacket over. "What is it with guys like you? Great in persistence yet small in size."

"You've chased me here from Sunnydale right? Sorry if I can't place you, it's really not much to go on, I killed a lot of people's kids."

"You'd remember mine, he was especially young."

"Oh, now I know!" Angelus eyes lit up in realization. "I dunno, what can I say, something about losing my soul kinda just gives me the hankering for newborns. Might have been the time it made me pass up a tasty little morsel so I could dine instead on rat soufflé."

"Oh well, so long to those bygone days that seemed to go on so, so long; because happy days are here to stay."

"Well as soon as I take care of this chick dressed like the Fonz." He threw a blade at the leather jacketed redhead that lodged in her throat.

"Justine!" The man cried.

He leaned down to Justine to see she was dead.

He turned back to Angelus. "Kill him." He cried out to his men.

"Ditto." Lilah seconded

His men rushed forward. But before they could reach him, the sound of gunfire penetrated the room.

Several of the vampire fighters dropped to the ground.

A group of armed men in swat uniforms swarmed into the place firing.

A man dressed in full swat gear raised the helmet shield and reported to Lilah. "Hostiles eliminated. It's all done, ma'am."

Later…

Lilah surveyed the room. "We just missed them. Angelus and I must've just left. Still we don't have a lot of time; I've already called in full cleaner service for this place."

"I didn't see all the others." Wesley looked down at Fred's dead body. "But I found Fred like this when I came in the next morning."

Lilah turned to Wes. "No that's impossible Fred escaped from Wolfram and Hart."

"That night she escaped. It seems she transformed into a vampire more quickly than we had anticipated."

Fred looked down at her corpse. "So is there anything we should do about me?"

"Because it looks like that cleaning crew is coming in now." Fred pointed.

The Broom Closet…

Fred's dead body lay slumped against one side of Wesley while Lilah lay on the other, as they sat pressed together on the floor of the small broom closet they had hidden in.

"I don't hear anything." Wesley whispered. "I think they've gone."

"I dunno why I'm hiding, these guys work for me."

"And that's something you're proud of?"

"You know it was, it really was." Lilah laughed. "I really wasn't bad at being the bad guy. Too bad I wasn't really bad too; I would've had it good."

"Suddenly feeling a pang of remorse about the destruction of humanity? Little late don't you think?"

"Well you said I was quite good at looking the other way."

"I did? When would I say something like that to you?"

"Illyria said…" Lilah stammered. "Illyria told me that on her world, you and me, we…"

"Oh." Wes's eyes widened in realization.

"Not that it means anything."

"Of course not; alternate world, there might have been any number of mitigating circumstances at work."

"Mitigating circumstances?" Lilah furled her brow.

"You know, natural, seemingly inconsequential, random occurrences that might have huge ramifications for space time. Given the near infinite probabilities I'm sure there are potential universes where I might be having relations with gorilla like primate."

"You're comparing me with a gorilla? Buster you'd be lucky to have me."

"I'd rather have Sorialus the Ravager at least she has more up front then you."

"Given your proclivities I'd say up front that it is rather phony of you to knock my knockers."

Lilah motioned to Fred. "For someone from the great state of Texas, she certainly wasn't endowed with huge tracts of land."

"Look you can act all righteous if you want, like it would never happen in a million years. But the truth is I have ample assets up front and everywhere else, and I could have you right here if I wanted to throw myself at…"

"Whoops." Lilah slipped forward onto Wesley's lap. "Uh, sorry that was involuntary."

Lilah sat motionless, her face buried in his crotch. "Um, little help here'd be nice."

With a sigh Wesley pulled her back up. She slumped again but with her head on his shoulder.

"And don't get all high and moral with me, while I was putting it all on the line to do my job you just gave up, sat wallowing in your basement, obsessing over your dead girlfriend. Oh but that's right, she was never your girlfriend."

"I never gave up." Wes looked to her angrily. "I just prioritized."

"Well buddy your priorities were misplaced."

"Perhaps they were... Then again what's the point of living if all you're living for is lost?"

"But this dead thing beside me…" Wes motioned to the dead body of Fred slumped next to him. "This soulless beast that shares Fred's beauty and her cunning intellect will in the next few years attempt to grind me into a stump. She will use all of my feelings for Fred to make me doubt the very worthiness of the cause I've devoted myself to."

"She will bite into me and have her fill. Using only words but with searing rhetoric and logic she will tear me to shreds…"

Wes smirked. "And I used to think my father was bad."

"Yeah well try living life by the whims of a psychotic drug crazed vampire."

"When Fred escaped from Wolfram and Hart that night, Angelus was sure that she was going to vampify you and that the two of you would team up and try and muscle in on our territory. He was pretty paranoid about it, then again he was paranoid about everything; one day he was convinced I cheated on him with Sahjhan."

"The longer he used the crazier he got. The Angel part of him became suicidal and the Angelus part didn't have any goals but to stay high."

"There would come a point when it was impossible to continue to increase the dose any further and we would have to detox him to get his tolerance back down again."

"What?" Wes raised a brow. "You mean you sent him to Betty Ford?"

"Something like that. I would go in with him; they would reduce his drug levels by reducing the amount of the drug in my system."

"I thought that doohickey in your spinal column prevented the drugs from affecting you."

"Oh they didn't affect my mental capacity at all, but effect of the withdrawn on my body, well you see…"

"But Angel in withdrawal was pitiful, I'm sure that he would've much rather have died if we'd of let him."

"Even the Sanshu prophesy, the promise of becoming human couldn't sway him. The only way I had to motivate him to continue was to remind him of Wolfram and Hart's promise to reunite him with Connor after he completed his task."

"I don't understand, how?"

"They promised him a land to rule over all to himself, a place where Connor was alive named the Quor-toth."

"Shh" Wes put his finger to his mouth. "I hear someone coming."

Illyria opened the door to the closet to see them; Lilah again had fallen forward into Wesley's lap.

"It's not what…" Wesley looked up at Illyria awkwardly. "She slipped."

They stumbled out of the closet.

"What about her." Lilah lifted her uncoordinated arm towards the dead Fred.

"Leave her. That's where I find her in the morning." Wes helped Lilah get to her feet. He held onto her to keep her properly balanced.

"Where is the other Fred?" Illyria looked about in confusion.

"At Wolfram and Hart." Lilah exclaimed. "And I have a sneaking suspicion that we're going to need to go in and get her."

"Explain." Illyria demanded.

"Well nothing showed up in any of the surveillance tapes but when I conducted an investigation of Fred's escape, several witnesses said they were sure they saw me with Fred that night. Since I know I wasn't with Fred I figured these witnesses were deliberately disseminating disinformation about me to undermine me and…"

"Kinda feel bad about that now." Lilah looked down.

"Well put in perspective." Wesley noted with sarcasm. "Alongside helping create the ruin of world apocalypse it wasn't really all that big of a deal."

Wolfram and Hart's…

Fred unzipped the body bag and climbed out of it.

She went to a closet and pulled out a white lab coat.

Putting it on, she looked around. "Looks like the same layout…"

Then she looked at one of the doors. "And the same security."

"Can I help you?" Someone tapped her on the shoulder from behind.

Fred turned around startled. "Knox?"

"Do I know you?" The young man in the lab coat asked.

"Knox who has security clearance…" Fred said under her breath. "Yes, of course don't you remember me from that night?"

"Um?" Knox looked to her in confusion.

"Well you were pretty out of it."

"Course I was really into it." Fred sidled up to him.

"You and I we?" Knox looked toward her apprehensively.

She leaned over and kissed him. "Coming back to you yet?"

"Yeah I think maybe…" Knox said blankly.

"You still as kinky?" Fred held up a length of rope.

Knox smiled.

Outside the Science Lab…

Lilah swiped the security card into the doors slot then opened the door. "This is where they would've taken her."

They stepped inside to see Knox bound to the chair with a gag in his mouth.

"I think she may have left already." Wesley stepped inside he removed the gag from Knox's mouth.

Knox looked up at her. "Miss Morgan, help there's a vampire lose in the building, she tried to kill me."

Wesley bent down to see two puncture wounds on his neck. "My god, she actually fed on him."

"She has no love for the Qwa'ha Xahn."

"What did you call me?" Knox looked up at Illyria. "And why do you look just like…"

He furled his brow. "Master?"

Illyria bent over to him. "You would follow me? Worship me?"

"I have and always will be your servant." Knox looked at her in awe.

"Then I have a command for thee."

Illyria bent down and whispered in his ear.

Knox looked up at her confused. "Master?"

"I think I may know where Fred might have gone." Wesley squinted.

They started off when Knox called out. "Wait boss, er master, aren't you going to untie me?"

Illyria went back toward him taking a pair of large scissors from the desk.

He looked up toward her smiling. "Thank you, boss."

Illyria brought the scissors down into his leg.

Knox screamed loudly in pain, and then looked down to see the scissors had also severed the rope that held him to the chair.

The Library…

Fred looked down and shook her head. "No, that can't be right."

"Oh but it is, this is what you asked to see." Sirk stood beside her and pointed at the source book on the tabletop. "Not that I'd expect someone like you to know a Nyazian scroll from a Dutrovik one. Are you sure Miss Morgan authorized you for all this, I haven't seen you here before."

Sirk made his way toward the phone. "You know I think I'll call and check, it never hurts to be too careful with security."

"No need, the young lady is doing just fine."

"Oh Miss Morgan?" Sirk turned surprised.

Wesley came up to examine the book. "It's Nyazian all right, bit sparse though…"

"A bit?" Fred looked to him exasperated. "There's nothing written here except…and from undying love that bred unending hate, the vampire with a soul shall conceive a son."

"That's it?"

"Well I guess I don't feel that bad about passing it up now. Then again as I recollect this scroll didn't have much buzz about it, I thought I'd check it out anyhow because it supposedly mentioned Angel's son."

"This can't be right." Fred turned to Wesley. "You said the Nyazian prophecies are never wrong."

"Well technically that scroll isn't wrong; it's just not the same as the one you describe. The one that you say was tampered with by this Sahjhan character."

"Yes but Sahjhan said that the only reason he tampered with it was because the scroll said Connor would kill him. This scroll doesn't mention anything of the sort."

"Perhaps the keepers of the isle have not yet been told." Illyria said nonchalantly.

Wesley furled his brow. "What do you know of Nyazia?"

"You seek the island in time, the undying land?" Illyria furled her brow.

She smiled wickedly. "Yes now that I think on it perhaps I can help. The one whose presence I sensed earlier, I believe she may aid us."

Illyria turned to Lilah. "Can you bring me to the one called Mesektet."

Wolframs and Hart's Lobby…

The group headed toward the elevator.

Suddenly a shout could be heard from across the room. "Lilah!"

Angelus rushed up toward them. Wes, Fred and Illyria slipped into the elevator unnoticed while Lilah leaned against the wall to steady herself as Angelus approached.

"Oh there you are. I've been looking all over for some more of that good stuff you got."

"Oh honey, I dunno, I'm pretty drained already."

"C'mon, a few pints, whattaya worried about? You go downstairs to medical get some more blood transfused into ya. Ya won't even notice." Without waiting he grabbed her and chomped into her neck.

Lilah limply tried to push him off. "Stop!"

"Stop…" Lilah gasped weakly.

Suddenly Angel jerked away from Lilah and doubled over in pain clutching at his groin.

"No, means no, jerk."

"I've wanting to say that for the last few years." Lilah stumbled into the elevator and the doors closed.

The White Room…

"I thought I felt the presence of my old master…" The young girl in the red dress smiled at Illyria as she stepped out of the elevator.

Illyria stood before the girl in the red dress. "It is so like you to choose the form of a juvenile human female, for a creature who thrives upon order your favorite tactic always was surprise."

"And the reason you choose to look like… that." Mesektet gestured to Illyria. "Is that you always wanted everyone's eyes on you in envy and adulation."

"I did not choose this form. It was chosen by my subjects as I had ordained prior to my fall."

"Oh so being drop dead gorgeous is just a lucky perk?" Mesektet raised her brow.

"So you chose to take up with the Wolf, Ram and Hart after I was overthrown."

"It was many things that led me to be here now at the end. The world will be soon as it once was in the days of your glorious rule." She looked at Illyria sadly.

"My rule? My rule was noble and just, all races thrived under my reign. There was order."

Illyria gestured to Mesektet. "You have the sight. What order is there in the burned and scorched earth you see coming? You know that it will be littered with the carcasses of what might have been loyal and productive subjects."

"Such are the designs of your new masters…"

"And you, whose talents are second to none, are left here to rot in this prison..." Illyria gestured to the blankness of the white room. "When you could be out in the world doing what you were born to do."

"How is it that you have returned?" The little girl asked.

"It's not so much that I have returned but this form I now inhabit that I think will motivate your actions in this case. You were always so fond of the monkey children. You played with them instead of dealing with your own kind."

"And now all the people shall perish from the earth. How does it feel to have your favorite toy stripped from you?"

"What would you have me do? Even if I wished to oppose the designs of the Wolf, Ram and Hart, the deed is done now. There's nothing that any of us can do to change the future."

"Oh but there is. You control this 'white room'; you can send us to the Nyazian isle."

"The island in time? You seek to correct an anomaly?"

"This is the anomaly."

"You wish me to help you collapse this timeline?" Then the little girl smiled broadly. "And I would therefore have safe passage on the isle for eternity."

"I would consider this if it would not upset the order." Mesektet gave a slight curtsy to Illyria. "After all my true allegiance is to you."

"Very well then…"

Mesektet began to incant and the whiteness of the room began to flow away. They looked around to see they were standing upon a shoreline. The tide that flowed up to meet their feet seemed as white as milk.

"I suspect that's where we need to go." Wesley pointed at a group of buildings constructed in the manor similar to that of ancient Greece or Rome, built upon the rise before them.

Inside the Ancient Building…

The group approached cautiously. In the middle of what seemed to be a cavernous room a lone man sat at a desk with his back to them.

The robed grey haired figure sat scribbling on a piece of paper with a feather pen.

"Let's see now…" He scribbled on the paper.

"In that time the hounds will howl and the chickens will dance…"

"Nah. Too literal. Ah I've got it." He scribbled on the paper again. "And the yellow will dance most foully."

He looked down at the paper proudly. "That'll keep 'em guessing."

He jumped when Illyria approached him.

"Oh my god, warn me next time, you know how I hate it when you…" He stopped and squinted his eyes.

He put on a pair of glasses and drew back in alarm. "Wait, you're not her."

He stood and looked around at the group in amazement.

"Lilah?" He stopped at stared at her. "It's you, my god, I almost forgot I knew you so young." He reached out and hugged her. Lilah glanced at him in confusion

"While I was expecting you," The grey haired man with glasses smiled pleasantly at Lilah. "I didn't think it'd be while I was here."

The grey haired man leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "It's good to see you alive."

"Wait..." Lilah looked towards the grey haired man in wonderment. "That accent."

The grey haired man then turned to Fred. He reached over and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her full on the mouth, even tilting her head back slightly.

"Wesley?" Fred whispered; she gazed up at him as he held her.

"To see your face so, so young again? I'll probably regret saying this, in fact I'm sure I will, but heavens you really were so beautiful when you were young."

Fred gaped at him open mouthed.

Illyria looked down at the two of them jealously.

Wesley looked over at her. "Oh don't worry I haven't forgotten you my dear."

They all stood by in shock as the grey haired Wesley proceeded to plant the same type of smacker on the lips of Illyria.

"For one so aged you are remarkably well-muscled. Perhaps I chose the wrong Wesley to ravish." Illyria ran her hands along his arms and shoulders.

Wesley looked down at her. "You my dear are also looking remarkably young and fresh. I'd almost forgotten how unnatural those blue eyes of yours used to look."

Illyria looked at him with concern. "What are you saying?"

"You mean she turns human?" Fred asked.

"Let's just say there's a wrinkle or two marking that prefect face of yours your highness."

Illyria looked at him with alarm. "I am old?"

"No, that cannot be permitted. I am Illyria. I will forever be the model of beauty and perfection."

Illyria looked into the mirror and began running her fingers across her forehead as she scrunched it. "I cannot get old."

Fred pointed her finger accusingly at Wesley. "What the hell are you doing with her?"

"God, do we have to go through this again? We put all this jealous bickering behind us and all learned to get along." He grabbed Fred in his arm and pulled her to him.

"In your dreams, Hef." Fred pushed herself away from him.

"Well, all in good time."

"Speaking of time could you explain to us, what an older version of myself is doing here?" The younger Wesley stepped forward.

"This is the island lost it time. A nexus for all kinds of temporal anomalies." The grey haired Wesley gestured around him.

"Folks like yourself regularly pass through here; More than once actually. It's kind of like a revolving tape loop that plays the same message over and over."

"Lilah for instance has passed through here a number of times, her descendants the Morgans are one of the largest groups on the island."

"Wait my descendants?"

The grey Wesley pointed to a painted picture. In it Lilah sat in a chair with a baby in her lap, several other children were assembled around her; behind her stood a brown haired man with glasses and a heavy beard. "That was painted about 300 years ago, when the last version of you came through."

Lilah pointed at the picture. "Who's the guy with the beard?"

"Look closer…" The grey haired Wesley pressed her toward the painting.

Lilah approached the painting. She then looked over at the young Wesley who was paying them no mind. "Wesley?"

"Only people from collapsed timelines can live on the island." The older Wesley gestured to the expanse of the island with its antique architecture. "The rest of us can merely visit; and then only the once."

"You see in this place time acts both as a recurring loop and as an infinite string. People from collapsed timelines and those born on the isle experience the passage of time normally. They grow, age and die just like normal. However visitors such as caretakers like myself experience the recurring loop, a period about a week long."

"We've been here for over thirty years now and I haven't aged a day" He turned to Illyria. "Which is partly why you insisted on going."

"Messengers like yourself come in regularly from future timelines and give us the information we need to write our prophecies."

"When we took over from the previous caretakers they warned us not to mess with certain events that take place regularly on the island. One of these had to do with letting a demon named Sahjhan break into the library and tamper with one of the scrolls."

The older Wesley continued. "They said it was his destiny to do so and we shouldn't interfere."

"Well last Whedonsday Sahjhan doesn't show. I have a suspicion that you're here to rectify that."

"So it is true, the order was split." The little girl in the red dress sighed happily. "You will grant me a place on the isle."

Fred interrupted him. "Wait, if you know about this anyway why don't you fix the problem yourself?"

"I can't. My job here is to act as a journalist. I get the scoop by talking to eyewitnesses. "

"It's kind of a journalistic ethic that they have here, I have to be objective. I can only report what I'm told."

"So you going to tell me something or not?"

In Wesley's Study…

Wesley sat a table and bench writing on a scroll with a feather quill. Fred and Illyria sat on either side of him as he wrote.

Fred looked down at his attire. "Why did put on a red smoking jacket?"

"Your Hef comment earlier, you like it? You bought it for me."

"You can't expect me to believe that I would be just fine with this little arrangement you've got going here, Joseph Smith."

Illyria interrupted. "She is merely designated as your mistress correct? I am your primary consort?"

"Ladies, ladies I can assure you that everyone is quite comfortable with our little arrangement." Wesley smiled.

"Oh yeah if this is true where are we, shouldn't we be here?"

"Oh you two are off again, getting along together."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe that you two long to get off together again alone."

"What?" Fred looked to him incredulously.

Wesley smiled at her.

Fred looked over at Illyria and then turned back to Wesley. "You've got to be joking…"

"Oh come on. In your own way you've always been vain. You're good looking and you've always realized it. You said yourself you can't think of any other girl you'd rather…'

Fred elbowed him in the stomach and Wesley sucked in his breath in pain.

Illyria scowled at her. "Stop hurting the sexy older Wesley."

"She is a vampire and they are bad, unlike us full blood demons." She whispered in his ear. "We can be wicked."

Fred smacked Illyria from the other side. "Hey get the hell away from him. You'll only encourage him further."

"Just tell me exactly what Sahjhan said the prophesy was about." Wesley took his finger and pricked it. He held it over a small thimble cup and several drops of blood dripped into it.

"But you already know…" She stopped as Wesley gave her an exasperated look.

"The one sired by the vampire with the soul shall grow to manhood and kill Sahjhan." Fred quoted.

Wesley tipped the feather quill in the blood and began scribbling on the scroll.

He laid down the quill and began rolling up the scroll.

"Wait that can't be it." Fred looked to the older Wesley in puzzlement.

"No, I believe that this is all that will be necessary. Sahjhan will read about his impending doom and do all the rest." The older Wesley smirked. "In his effort to save himself from the fate sealed in the prophesy he will ensure that the one person who can kill him lives to do so."

"The universe is sort of absurd in that way, so often the truth lies only in paradox."

"The only thing you know is that you know nothing…" Fred said blankly.

Wesley smiled at her. "Now you're getting the hang of it."

"Well it's Whedonsday and look at that it's almost one thirty." Wesley pointed at a sundial. "I should get this thing tucked away in the library before Sahjhan is scheduled to come by."

He tucked the scroll into his robe and turned to leave.

Inside the Ancient Building…

The young Wesley approached Fred.

He looked to her sadly. "Fred I'm sorry. The last few years you weren't yourself and I shouldn't blame you for what happened then."

Fred embraced Wesley. "It's ok, I understand."

Wesley broke from her embrace. "All this time I prayed that it would work; that your soul would come back to you. That I would get back the girl who had died that day."

"But by the time I did…" Wesley looked down.

"I'm sorry, I really am." He looked at her apologetically.

"It's ok Wesley." Fred stroked his face. "Honestly what hurt me the most was the hatred I saw in your eyes. It was like you wanted to kill me."

Wesley looked up at her tearfully as he raised a sharpened wooden stake.

"I'm sorry, but I do have to kill you."

"Wesley?" Fred drew back in apprehension.

"Remember how I told you the problem with gypsy ensouling magic is that it has an adverse effect built into it; A curse to balance the blessing, and that one had to be very careful when phrasing the curse, or it would backfire."

"Well I figured I had the perfect loophole." Wesley continued. "The spell could only be undone if Fred did something to prevent her from ever becoming a vampire in the first place."

"And now that Sahjhan is about to break in here and…" Fred looked to Wesley in alarm. "Oh god, I won't be able to control this body anymore."

"More like you'll be kicked out of the body…" Wesley corrected.

"Leaving only the soulless beast." Fred finished.

"My hold is slipping." Fred suddenly convulsed.

"She's here pushing me out." Her legs wobbled beneath her and she clutched Wesley for support. "Oh god Wesley, she's vile."

Wesley held Fred's gaunt and frail form in his arms as she slumped to the floor.

Fred looked up at him wanly. "I remember, I remember what she did, what she said to you."

"My god, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." Tears streamed from her face.

"You once told me that you've loved me since you've known me. After all this, do you?" Fred looked up at him sadly. "Do you still love me after all I've done?"

"In the millions of probabilities, of the trillions of different universes, where you and I exist…" Wesley gently stoked her face. "I don't think there is a single one in which I have not always loved you."

He leaned down and kissed her gently.

"Not again, oh please no." Fred laid her hand upon his face.

Then Fred's pale and wan figure slumped in his arms. "Please, Wesley why can't I stay?"

In the next instant, her face contorted with vampire features; and she snarled at Wesley.

Wesley pushed the stake forward and she exploded in a puff of smoke and ash.

Strangely the ghostly form of Fred remained in place.

"How?" Wesley looked up at the older version of himself.

"The Island of Nyazia is part of the time stream." The grey haired Wesley explained. "As long as a person exists somewhere and sometime with a soul, then that individual can utilize an ethereal form that they can travel the time stream with."

Fred's ghostly form stood up. "So how do we get back home?"

The Docks…

Illyria and the ghostly Fred stood on the dock surveying the sleek motor boat.

"Didn't we come in a canoe?" Fred tilted her head as she looked the boat.

"Since you are not from the collapsed time line you cannot stay here." The older Wesley winked at her. "At least not yet."

"So the other Wesley, Lilah and Mesektet are all gonna live here now?"

"Hey don't fret Fred." The grey haired Wesley smirked. "You'll be back here before you know it."

The ghostly Fred looked at him cynically. "How do you know all of this is going to happen?"

"In reality I don't. Time fluxes and the probabilities they generate, although ordered, are pretty well unpredictable; this is just one of a plethora of possibilities."

"So I bid you two adieus until later and sprinkle this little incentive…"

The grey Wesley winked at Illyria as he pushed them off. "Just think about the plethora of possibilities."

Wesley waved as they motored away.

Illyria curled her face in thought. "A plethora is a part of the female anatomy is it not?"

"You're thinking urethra…" Fred corrected. "And it's in both sexes."

Fred and Illyria glanced at each other awkwardly.

"Wesley is mine." Illyria turned to Fred. "I will not share him with you."

"Oh yeah?" Fred turned to her insulted. "If you think you're going to get anywhere near my Wesley you've got another think coming honey."

"Honey?" Illyria looked at Fred apprehensively.

"I meant that in a, ya know, disparaging, sarcastic way."

"Oh." Illyria's eyes widened.

Illyria looked toward her confidently. "Good."

"Fine." Fred folded her arms across her chest.

"Ya know." Fred shook her head as they drove into the distance. "This won't do."

"In this you are correct." Illyria's blue eyes flared. "This will not do at all."

"The Nyazian Prophesy" Magnus Parvus


End file.
